If you’re stuck in the days long past of blinking banners and neon font colors, this post is for you. The internet is a vast place, and it only takes 5 seconds for someone to decide your site isn’t worth looking at before moving on. Ensure your site meets the standards of the 21st century and capture attention with these 5 tips.
1. Adopt the Inbound Marketing Methodology: The Inbound Methodology isn’t just some marketing gimmick. It’s not a choice between Android or Apple, Mac or Windows, vanilla or chocolate. It’s an adaptation to change. Inbound Marketing is not a right or wrong choice – it simply complies with the digital needs of today’s consumers. Your customers need and, more importantly, want great content. This could be:
- Blogs
- eNewsletters
- Guides
- Infographics
- Tip Sheets
- Whitepapers
And that’s just the beginning. Inbound Marketing leads your customers gracefully and tactfully through a funnel. Your content helps people become aware of you as they conduct research. Then they might consider your brand and try to find out more about you, before finally making a buying decision. Inbound breaks this process up into a simple process.
2. Make Your Content Great: Like the sun to Superman, Inbound is powerless without great content. Not only is it important to your readers, but Google looks over your shoulder like an ever-present school teacher to make sure you’re not cheating. This means your content has to be original! And if you don’t have anything useful to say, then don’t say it at all. Your content is a reflection of your business, and you want your business to look great.
As Joe Chernov, a marketer and startup advisor at HubSpot, wrote, “ …your inbound initiative should be a superset — inclusive of your content assets, but not limited to them.”
3. Stay on Good Terms with Google: Google’s so common, they’ve become part of our common vernacular. You don’t “research” something. You “Google” something.
This means you optimize! Stay up-to-date on the latest Google algorithms, utilize keywords in your content and use headline tags. And, for the love of the Internet Gods, use Google+. What you shouldn’t do is overuse keywords. Google can tell the difference between tactfully placed keywords and played out keywords. The same rule applies to links.
4. Make Changes When Needed: There is no one website or digital marketing tactic that is all powerful and timeless. Keep up with a a website nowadays is a full-time job. You need to make constant changes to keep up with trends. In 2016, it’s flat colors, cinema-graphs and Instagram. Tomorrow, a holographic Kanye West that pops out of your webcam and sings you a sonnet, kicking your keyboard when you don’t clap hard enough.
5. Bond with your Customers: Even though Google is the Game of Thrones of the internet, word of mouth referrals are still unquestionably effective. You’re more likely to try a product because someone you trust told you to try it. And we love to share our experiences with the internet. Whether it be a written review or a video, businesses can use those shout-outs as content. In doing so, your customers become your marketers.
